Chinese Garden Design - Space Contrasting

Contrast is a common technique to all forms of Chinese art. A Chinese landscape painting, for instance, always contains a large empty area that contrasts with the other “solid” detail objects. Chinese painters used little color in their paintings. Most of the visual effect of Chinese paintings is produced by two kinds of contrasting ink techniques, wet and dry. The wet technique which uses ink that has been highly diluted with water, mainly to draw, or to “wash” the “void” sky, water or distant mountain areas. The dry technique that used ink that is only slightly diluted with water is used to describe “solid” objects, such as: detail mountain, trees and figures. Exclusive use of either of these two kinds of the ink techniques would considerable restricted the artist’s range of expression. A traditional Chinese painting may be seen as a symphony of contrasting ink techniques.

Contrasts are also practiced in all aspects of Chinese gardens, including from the largest space disposition to the smallest detail design of a particular object. In the entire layout of a private Chinese garden, the dominant scenic section obviously occupied the largest space and is made up of the most attractive landscape features, contrasting to the confined space and the unpretentious scenes of the subordinate sections. The twisted paths, zigzag galleries and the small, dim sections are always lie around the central section of the garden to enhance the impression of the main garden scenery, and to maintain the artistic theme of the garden. Among those subordinate sections, one section always contrasts to another. If a Chinese garden section is open and bright, the one next to it must be closed and dark. So, generally, one should pass through narrow, dim, and secluded spaces before entering broad, bright, and open spaces. Thus, by restraining and limiting one’s sight and sense of space, the sudden release into a bright, large place makes one feel all the more lighthearted and joyful. The contrasting design technique dramatically intensifies the beauty of the garden scenery.

Contrast is also an important technique to make a particular garden scene captivating. If the main feature of a scene is emphasized for its height and size, the surrounding elements must be kept low and small. This is why the trees in a Chinese garden are always pruned for they are usually only used as subordinated features to the main rockery feature. Rough, convoluted and dark rocks are always erected on the lakeside to contrast the smooth, clear and bright water surface.

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